stories from porno land (some amusing, some not)

I’ve Retired. Well…sort of.

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Since I’m often a lazy writer, I’ll just go ahead and cut & paste what I just tweeted:

“It’s with great excitement — and at the same time being absolutely scared shitless — that I’m announcing my retirement from The Dogfart Network in order to spend 100% of my time & energy on the 4 websites & affiliate program I began almost 14 years ago. Thank you so much Cable! I’d also like to thank all the terrific talent — both female & male — that made my (almost) 17-year-run with The Dogfart Network enjoyable, interesting, frustrating, and downright fucking weird! I wouldn’t trade my DF time for anything. Now on to @manojob & @mrpov & @LegitClips!”

I make that statement with the utmost of sincerity. Look, almost all jobs are difficult. To me, shooting an 18-man blow bang for Dogfart (the record, about to appear on InterracialBlowbang.com starring the incomparable India Summer) was as challenging as managing a 7th-grade classroom; in fact, there’s nothing better to qualify a person to become a director in Porn Valley than teaching middle school. The dynamics are all pretty much the same: too many hormones and strong personalities and a whole lotta drama.

Now, here’s a portrait of barely-legal Porno Princess Chanel Grey…one of the last I made on a Dogfart set. I’d write some more, but I’ve got work to do.

Barely Legal Chanel Grey
Chanel Grey
Porn History Lesson

Billy Watson — The Dumbest Name in Porn Valley?

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Hannah Hays and Lexi Lore
Hannah Hays and Lexi Lore
I invented the name “Billy Watson” a long time ago — 1998, to be exact, as I was building a simple web page. Back then, I was simply an “affiliate”; which is to say I created a “thumbnail gallery page” to submit to a “TGP” — a “thumbnail gallery post site”. Back then, there was a decent living to be made submitting what was essentially a small sample of smut (15 pictures was the standard requirement) to sites like “The Hun“, “Sex Hungry Joe’s”, “The Adult Buffet”, and “Persian Kitty”. To my knowledge, The Hun is the only one still in existence…although it only slightly resembles what it looked like in ’98.

It sounds ridiculous, but I wanted to brand my simple little page. With a “name”. And simple the page was. In exchange for hosting (and paying for the terrific amount of traffic they sometimes generated), whoever it was who owned the hosting company who slap their banners along the top and bottom of page…and sometimes have a text link in the middle, as well. They kept that revenue; if the horny surfer clicked on one of my pics — and then to the site I was promoting — I’d make a couple bucks!

I was a part-time affiliate, and I wasn’t really any good at it. There were always rumors that the full-timers were making 5-figures a month — a rumor that was later substantiated. But I digress.

Inventing a porn name isn’t as easy as choosing your pet’s name followed by the street you grew up on, although that’s worked nicely for some. At first, I thought I’d give myself a powerful name. Like Master Blaster. Or maybe a normal first name, followed by a last name synonymous with something tough…or impenetrable…or piercing. Billy Steele? Billy Strong? Billy Nails? Maybe something of value: Billy Silver or even better Billy Gold or perhaps the very best…Billy Platinum? Billy Bitcoin? (Not really. We all know there were no bitcoins in 1998, kinda like there really are no bitcoins in 2018).

I can’t believe it was 20 years ago (maybe even today!) Billy Watson popped into my head, and I still have no idea why. Speaking of 20 years ago today, I really, really wished I’d have called myself Billy Shears. Way cooler. But no, I got hung up on Billy Watson, and here I am today, stuck with a ridiculous name that makes no rhyme or reason.

A quick Google search turns up a 94-year-old actor named Billy Watson; “Whipper” Billy Watson the Canadian professional wrestler; Billy Watson and the International Silver String Submarine Band; and, finally, a soccer player named Billy Watson who started his career in Scotland, then moved to England, and then the United States.

Another digression: I’ve often contemplated blogging a list of the greatest porn names ever invented. They’d have to include Alexis Texas, Cherry Poppens, Faye Runaway…and? I dunno. Leave a comment and help a brother out.

Anyway, after I invented my name, I had one very difficult thing to do: tell my parents exactly what I was doing to make spare money. (Yea…that’s the way I roll). I was part-time adjunct, teaching English 101 and 102…and selling two kinds of smut online: a Japanese Bukkake site and a site specializing in interracial sex: Blacks on Blondes. My pal, Jay-the-Postman, who had just quit the post office to become a pornographer, had just met a dude who owned the site. “Promote these two sites, and even if you put in a couple hours a day, you’ll make a couple grand a month.”

I though it was all bullshit, but nope. I’d submit a couple hours a day, Monday through Friday, and yea…I made a couple grand a month. “That’s where the extra money is coming from, Mom and Dad. I promote pornography on the internet.” Mom and Dad looked at me. Dad kept eating. Mom kinda shook her head in disgust. “What do you call yourself?” She asked.

“Billy Watson,” I replied.

My mom looked at me in this sort-of are-you-kidding-me-look and said, “I know I never told you this, but before your grandmother married your grandfather, she briefly dated a man fellah named Billy Watson.”

Yea…and this: here’s a couple arty-farty picture I made last month, while Porn Valley was on its HIV moratorium.

Hannah Hays and Lexi Lore
Hannah Hays and Lexi Lore

drama, Here's the Skinny on Your Favorite Star

My (Brief) Phone Call with a Performer of the Year.

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The Award Winner knew me before I knew him. I didn’t know it when we first shoot hands, but Cumbang is a really popular site from his part of the world, which is somewhere far, far east of Porn Valley. It’s east of London and Paris, too…I just don’t recall if it’s the Ukraine or Russia, but it’s over there, somewhere. But hey — give me credit, at least I know the difference between the two.

After we shook hands that first time, and he told me how much he loved my work, he proceeded to just kill it on set with September Reign for We Fuck Black Girls. A superb performance.

Next up, another phenomenal job, this time in an Ashley Pink gang bang.

He’s the best male newcomer I’d ever seen, and he might be the best ever to step foot into Porn Valley. He did have an outstanding coach, though — namely Rocco Siffredi; in fact, he kinda reminded me of a young Rocco when we met.

And word spread fast. I know, because every time I tried booking him from then on, I couldn’t. The date was taken. When he left his agent, I started contacting him directly…which is when his rate changed. It went up. Way up. But that’s cool, cause if anyone deserved a rate increase, he did.

Fast forward to January, and his big day at AVN’s.

Fast forward to today, when I reached out to see how far out he was booked and to congratulate him for all the AVN success…which, I suppose, I should have done sooner.

Which is when things got weird. It got even weirder when he called me…instead of replying to my text. “Hey dude!” I said, answering the phone in my nice-guy voice. “Thanks for calling. I’m not sure why you’d think I’d ever mock your rate. It’s something I wouldn’t do to a performer.”

There was a few seconds of silence. Then, in a sort of sinister, intimidating tone (I know I’m showing my age, but think Boris Badenov from “Rocky & Bullwinkle”): “This is how it’s going to be. When I call you, I do the talking and you do the listening.”

Which, of course, isn’t at all how it’s “going to be”.

At all.

After I terminated the call, I thought a little bit about all the different personalties in my industry: the good folks and bad; the narcissists and the meek; the porn stars and the performers; the pervs and truly perverted; the psychopaths and sociopaths.

A long time ago, when I first started driving girls out to the glory hole, one model showed up and asked what we were shooting.

“Didn’t your agent tell you?”

She said, “no…he doesn’t communicate very well.”

After I told her what was expected in the scene, she picked up her bags and left, saying, “I’m at AVN Award Winner. I don’t do blowjobs anymore.”

I’d tell you who, but that wouldn’t make any difference. You wouldn’t remember her anyway. It took me a couple minutes poking around the site to recall her name.

Or, in other words, one minute you’re working on your mainstream TV show and the next you’re worried if you’re going to be back on a porn set..and if you can still get your rate.

As I bang this blog out, there’s AVN Awards winners and Hall-of-Famers living in the back seat of a car and there’s some jumping into their car about to start their Uber shift; there’s some sitting in a single-wide out in the middle of nowhere about to start another cam show and there’s some sitting in their single-wide smoking meth and there’s some who have died, alone, out in the middle of nowhere…in their single-wide.

And there’s some who are doing really, really well.

At any given time, every one of us is replaceable. Whether you’re in management or the work force, teacher or cop, producer or a director, male or female talent, make-up artist or production assistant, it really doesn’t matter. We’re all here, fighting the good fight, and then, one day, it ends — awards and Hall-of-Fame status mean nothing.

And don’t ever forget this: time is never your friend.

POST SCRIPT: I received a phone call — and an apology — from the subject of this blog, and we are working together again. An understanding has been had!

Here's the Skinny on Your Favorite Star, Worst of Billy Watson

In Memoriam: Cherry Poppens (1982 – 2018)

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Cherry Poppens hand job movies
I received the terrible news on the morning of January 25th, while I was in Vegas, shooting smut and attending the AVN’s. I was in the middle of my “morning routine” (coffee, e-mails, more coffee, confirming talent, more coffee, confirming locations…and then some more coffee). With a couple minutes of down time, and while finishing up my coffee, I noticed a Facebook DM pop up on my cellphone. You probably know you can only see the beginning of DM’s, and this one started with “Hey Billy…is it true about Cherry??” Of course I was immediately worried, but I waited a bit to open it. I was hoping it was something “good”, like…I dunno. Maybe “Hey Billy, is it true about Cherry? Did she really bang President Trump?” or “Hey Billy, is it true about Cherry? She’s making a comeback?” That’s what I was hoping, but it wasn’t good. At all. “Hey Billy…is it true about Cherry?? I just got a message from a friend of hers that she passed.”

I fought back tears and bit my lip and starting clicking all over the place: first, to Cherry’s profile; and sure enough, the RIP’s were already being posted; second, to her parents’ profiles, where I read frantically, trying to find a cause; third, back to Cherry’s profile, scrolling up from the RIP’s for clues to her demise. Nothing. All seemed well (posts of animals, which Cherry loved dearly…no weird drama or anything that would indicate any reason why she wouldn’t be with us anymore.)

A few days later, one of her friends reached out to me; at first, it seemed like foul play might be cause. Later, toxicology reports cited an accidental overdose.

I couldn’t make Cherry’s memorial service, but I think about her almost every day. She was a kind, peaceful soul who loved her friends and family and her bunnies and turtles…all animals, really.

She will be terribly missed.

One of the earliest blogs centered on my “Cherry crush”, and rereading it now just reminds me not only of how much I liked Cherry…but how difficult it is for any sex worker to maintain happy, healthy relationships. It also reminds me that I need to up my writing game — that’s for sure.

This blog’s original air date: September 17, 2005

Lately I’ve been crushing on Cherry Poppens.

And not just a crush like oh there’s Cherry Poppens on a website doing this or that and boy I’d sure like to meet her crush

but

I’m single and I shoot porn and I’m feeling like I wanna have a girlfriend who’s in the biz and Cherry’s a porn star so that helps and we’re friendly and that helps and maybe she might like me so I should ask her out kind of crush.

Whew.

Cherry’s super cool. I’ve worked with her a ton of times. In fact, I’ve hired her for everything I can, and given her multiple scenes on some of the sites I shoot — more than once or twice.

From a marketing angle, Cherry’s awesome: she’s a true redhead (rare), has great natural body, she’s super cute, puts on a great scene…and does just about anything you can ask for…in other words, she sells.

On a personal note, she’s solid: drug and drama free, great personality, true redhead (really rare), is super cute, has great natural body…and can carry an intelligent conversation on anything from punk rock (which I love) to politics (which I love to hate).

Which brings me back to why I even started writing this: I’ve been crushing on Cherry Poppens. I took the top picture at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood a long time ago, right after we wrapped one of her first scenes. The bottom shot is from a couple years later, I took her to a Dylan show at the Hollywood Palladium.

But she’s got a dude. And he’s probably this young, cool stud with cheek bones and washboard abs and tattoos and smokes unfiltered cigarettes while he hangs out on Venice Beach all day, skateboarding or surfing and not giving a shit about anything.

Which means I don’t have a chance.

Bob Dylan Hollywood Palladium show October 13 2009

Flea Market Blue Movies., Porn History Lesson

The Love of The Apache, or, It’s 1955 and all you wanna do is jerk off to something. Anything.

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Let’s say it’s 1955, and you’re starting to get into porno. It all began at your local drugstore — the magazine section, specifically. The lurid covers on Stag or Sir! or Man’s Life grabbed your attention: a giant grizzly bear attacking a lone camper; a man swimming furiously to a boat as bright-red water moccasins, fangs out and ready to strike, are closing in; giant crabs attacking a near-hysterical dude in tattered clothes on a lonely beach.

And once you got to know the drug store clerk a little better, he probably showed you some of the “good stuff” he kept behind the counter…always behind the counter, so the church ladies wouldn’t call the cops: Titter and Wink and Beauty Parade and Flirt. He might have even had a copy of Tropic of Cancer or Lady Chatterly’s Lover! And no, unfortunately he’s not carrying Hugh Hefner’s newest magazine, the one you’ve only heard about.

In the back of all those magazines were ads aimed specifically at your demographic: skinny men getting sand kicked in their face, only to return weeks later looking like the Incredible Hulk; lonely hearts clubs; Blackhead Removal contraptions and cheap guns and karate lessons; and, of course, ads for “stag films”. For just $2.00 (almost $20 in today’s money), you could get a movie so thrilling, so lurid, so…unsuppressed, you just couldn’t help yourself but buy one.

(By the way, a decent projector would have set you back another $50 or so, or about 1/2 a month’s worth of rent in a decent New York City neighborhood at that time).

But a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, and what you don’t have is a gal. Or, you’ve got a gal, but nothing’s happening until you’re married, and the dates are chaperoned by her mom and dad. You save up for a while, then go out and grab the newest, most bad-ass 8mm movie projector (the Kodak Royal — “quiet…brilliant…lubricated for life!”), and then send a company in Hollywood, CA, a couple more bucks (I swear it seems like all the porno companies were based in Hollywood then, which, of course, makes sense)…and a few weeks later, something awesome arrives in your mailbox. It’s in an unmarked, brown package…or, sometimes, in a package that’s labeled anything but “dirty movies. Something like “Tulip Seeds”, for example. (I didn’t make any of this up, as I’ve seen hardcore porn from the 40’s and 50’s at flea markets in original mailers).

Your first movie ordered? Something really filthy. You decide on a title that caught your eye — “Startling Show in Paris” — because it’s so dirty, it could only have been made in the world’s seediest city. And in the first few seconds of your new, great possession, you recognize the title of the strip tease the woman’s about to perform from your high school French class. “The Love of the Apache”. How…savage! You don’t recognize the stripper’s name, Robin Jewel, but that’s ok. You’ll order the Lily St. Cyr or Bettie Page or Blaze Starr or Tempest Storm movie next week (maybe all four!), after you get paid.

Look at the way she snatches that cigarette out of his mouth when she enters! The way she works that room! Her sheer, black hose! Those high kicks! Wait! Can you see her cootch?! It’s all just too much. Your brain melts after the first viewing. Nothing you’ve ever seen, ever, could match Robin Jewel! After your 50 feet is up and the film is spinning wildly in the take-up reel, you set the projector to neutral, stop the take-up reel from spinning, click the take-up reel’s arm up a notch, thread the film back to its original reel, flip the switch to rewind, and wait a minute or so until it’s ready to thread through the projector again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Just you, that dark room you’re sitting in, the Kodak Royal humming for another 2 minutes…and Robin Jewel. Dancing the dance of those wild Indians.

At that moment in time, life didn’t get much better.

Flea Market Blue Movies.

Stag Films, Blue Movies…and my Flea Market Adventures.

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Part of getting back to finding my voice here means trying to remember the things I’ve already told you about, and I can’t remember what I had for lunch today…let alone something crazy Barbie Cummings might have done in 2006. I know I told you guys I like to collect stuff, and over the past few years it’s been snapshots. But not just shots of the family gathered around the Thanksgiving turkey, or some kids opening their Christmas presents or blowing out candles on a birthday cake. I always keep my eye out for weird and whacky and wonderful…and what I call “happy mistakes”. I also love old cheesecake pics…not vintage hardcore shots, which, to me, are anything buy sexy. Not to digress, but I scooped up some old 8mm stag films lately, then got a gadget that allows me to convert them to MP4’s. Here’s the first of them, and I’ll call this one “Brand New Undies”. I bet this movie hasn’t seen the light of a projector since, maybe, 1965?

Enjoy.

Interview with a Pornstar, Porno Interviews, You Tube Flicks

Yhivi – a Porn Star with one Name.

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From about 2009 – 2011, give or take, I had a fairly successful YouTube Channel. This isn’t saying much, really, cause anything porn-related gets views on YT. Maintaining an adult-themed YouTube channel is a challenge, as their TOS is vague, and when they slap you on the wrist, they really don’t say, specifically, why…other than “review our Terms of Service”. And then, one day, after a few wrist slaps, my channel was deleted. So I’m going to to my best to start posting them here, where I should have for a long time.

Today’s subject is Yhivi (pronounced like “Evie”) spent a couple years in Porn Valley. Yhivi was very intelligent…maybe too smart for porn? Here’s an interview with Yhivi that’ll also give you a little more insight. The BTS here is from a Yhivi The Dick Suckers scene called “Hard Workin’ Babysitter”.

Porn History Lesson

So…where does the name Dogfart come from, anyway?

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Almost invariably, when a new girl walks on a Dogfart set, that’s the question. Fans ask a lot, too. Like most questions, there’s a long answer and a short answer…and a wrong answer.

The most-common wrong answer I’ve heard is, “it’s the owner’s nickname”.

The short answer is my boss named his affiliate program — as well as his network of individual websites — after a dude who started posting IR sex pics on the newsgroups in 1995. Dude had a lot of fans on certain newsgroups, and dude’s newsgroup handle was Dogfart.

And here’s the long answer, for those who really wanna know:

So it’s 1995, and you’ve just upgraded your modem from a 9.6 to the newest, fastest one available. It’s a 14.4, and it set you back almost $300 bucks. Plug your telephone line into into it, and you’re set! Since you’re not expecting any important phone calls, you’re psyched to jump online. And even if you did…who gives a fuck! Let them get the busy signal. You’re ready to use the internet for the greatest thing it was never intended for — jerkin’!

No more driving to a sleazy adult stores to rent a VHS tape, and, better yet, no more revealing your kink to the dude behind the counter.

But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

If you’re on the internet in the mid-90’s, you’re probably on your America Online account; but, if you’re  a savvy surfer, you’re laughing at the AOL suckers…and you’re using your modem to dial up to one of the lesser-known ISPs and launching one of four applications: mIRC (a popular live chat software), Netscape (the most popular browser of the day), GOPHER (I dunno what software you used to connect to the GOPHER system), and NewsBin (the most popular software for the Usenet newsgroups).

Since I never owned nor operated a “Web TV” device, I have no idea what that was all about. Nor can I really comment on GOPHER, because I never used it either…but from what I remember, GOPHER was the fast and easy way to avoid getting into your car to go to the library to look up stuff…whether you wanted to see if a book was available or look up information to use in your book report.

IRC was a creep show. I know; I was there. I used IRCNet for a short time, and no matter what “channel” I entered (none of which were adult-themed), some creeper immediately wanted to know my sex/age/location. I preferred chatting on my AOL account; somehow, I felt better (safer?) on AOL — instead of the very scary, wide-open, anything-goes internet relay chat.

Netscape Navigator, for a while, was the shit. It was “fast”, it looked cool, and just saying something like, dude, I love the latest version of Nav! meant you scored all sorts of Cool Points with your web surfin’ pals. (I just had to Google “what happened to Netscape” to learn AOL paid 4 billion+ for Netscape Communications (in 1998) before it finally died (in 2007). Then, AOL, as an ISP, pretty much “died” a few years later.)

Which leads us to the Newsgroups — and Mr. Dogfart himself. Before I blab about either, I went to Wiki for a hard definition: “A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations using Internet.”

Which is to say, I suppose, that Newsgroups, in the mid-90’s, were kinda like Reddit is now — virtual discussion groups — and if you had an ISP that offered ALL the newsgroups (I think, it their hey day, there was over 24,000 newsgroups — AOL offered maybe 5000, if that…and NONE of the really dirty ones), you could find discussions/pictures on almost anything you could think of.

Here’s a list of the some popular Usenet groups, circa 1995:
alt.society.liberalism
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.traci-lords
alt.binaries.warez.quebec-hackers
alt.politics.bush
alt.smokers.cigars
alt.atheism
alt.politics

“Binaries” meant pictures. “Warez” were usually hacked software licenses. And there was a newsgroup called “alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.interracial”, and it was ruled by a dude who posted IR sex photos under the name “Dogfart”. Whenever Dogfart posted his latest set of pics, the group hummed. People praised Dogfart, his work…and they begged for more.

And now, with that intro, I’ll let the man himself tell you the rest of the story…in his words. (I’m quoting from an e-mail DF just sent to me):

It was around mid 90’s, and I got a new computer. Back then, to get online, you needed to do AOL through dialup, they (commercial computer makers) even had the AOL software already installed on the computer. The first thing you run into is you need a unique screen name. I started trying everything I thought would be cool, and they were already all taken.

I was getting frustrated since this was all new to me. After awhile, my mother’s dog, that we were watching while she was away, just came into the room, sat down next to me, and ripped a big Silent-But-Deadly fart! Out of frustration, I punched in dogfart, and it got accepted. It was locked in after that.

I always wanted to be a pornographer, in my youth I did detailed porn drawings, and when the VHS era came about, I was always at the video store in the back room loading up on videos. After getting the computer, I found they came out with an external capturing device called “the Snappy”, and when hooked up to my VCR, I could create my own porn pics from the rented porn tapes.

The first pics were 240×320, and even on the low res monitors we had then, it looked like a postage stamp in the middle of the screen. That’s when I got the idea to make the 4x pics which worked because I was scanning from videos, and there was a progression of the action.

I bought the comp to access porn because I’ve always been an addict, so I went to the newsgroups because that’s where it could be found. After learning how that worked, I began posting my pics, of course using the dogfart name.

What’s hilarious about this is when they started coming up with search engines, I decided to punch in dogfart and see what it would find. I saw some of my newsgroup posts, and some other posts from another dude calling himself dogfart. I checked them out and they came from a very racist newsgroup where N-Word was the most common word used, and some of the worst came from this dogfart dude! Apparently he was established as dogfart in this group, and when I started posting my pics, he took a beating in that group from his peers. Even though they pretty much knew he didn’t post them, they hammered him about the pics every time I posted something new. It definitely shut him up in that group!

My boss hooked up with the real Dogfart, started Blacks On Blondes, and in a short time went 100% legit, deleting all the content Dogfart originally created and renting a mansion overlooking the hills of the Pacific Ocean. Under Dogfart’s watchful eye, my boss began producing original content. I began working for Blacks on Blondes a few months later, as second camera. Dogfart was living at the house, editing the content as fast as the first two directors, Sam Benjamin and Just TimberlakeFeelsYourPain, could crank out scenes. Then, a shot time later, I started directing the scenes for my boss’s second pay site, Gloryhole.com.

We’d wake up, drive down the hill to Ralph’s (celebrity sightings were a dailty thing) eat breakfast overlooking the Pacific, drive back up the hill and shoot porn til the sun set, smoke weed, watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, gossip about what happened that day, and have parties on the weekends. It was a great time.

(For anyone interested, Sam wrote a book called “American Gang Bang” about his life in porn…and this chapter in his life does come up. I just looked over at Amazon, and you can get the book or download the Kindle file.)

A couple years later, the online business model shifted, and the producers who owned more than one site started offering all their sites for the same price as the single-site membership — GET ALL OUR SITES FOR $29.95 A MONTH!

Porn, which was always very expensive, got really cheap. Not happy at all about this shift, my boss took his sites, put them under one umbrella, and decided to call it “The Dogfart Network”.

A couple years later, porn, which was now cheap, was about to be free. Pirates figured out how to stream content directly into the end-user’s browser, freeing the at-home pervert from downloading sketchy, unknown files (remember “Kazaa” & “Limewire”, & “Napster”?) — which leads us to yet another story.

And someday, when I blog it, I’ll call that story “The Beginning of The End”.